I still think McCain's choice of Sarah Palin will work out as a negative in the end. There are many turns in the road. She will surprise us, and not in a good way. Much as I love her populism, her apparent ordinariness, and her love of the outdoors, I suspect the problem will arise from her character, her self-dealing, or lack of principles, some glaring personal glitch. Also, I think that one of neighbor Anne Kilkenny's greatest insights in her famous email involves Palin's looks:
girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and
won’t vote for her can’t quit smiling when talking about her because
she is a “babe”.
That describes me. I admit it, I'm smitten by Palin's brimming feminine energy and figure. She's sexy and seems approachable. As I said, my chimney sweep wants to vote for her because she's so goodlooking. He says, "She's the classic girl next door. In every way." I wonder whether this wasn't also part of John McCain's vulnerability to her. She's hot. And that some day this will be perceived as a Shakespearean mistake on his part, moved by his gonads. Just putting it on the table.
i want palin to deck lieberman
I don't think McCain (or Obama, for that matter) chooses who his running mate is anyway. I would imagine these decisions are made by committees who operate in the background. After careful consideration of who will garner the most votes, the potential running mate is then presented to the presidential candidate. Perhaps more than one person is offered as a prospective choice, in which case Phil's theory of McCain being "moved by his gonads" may have come into play. But overall, I think the candidates have about as much input into their choice of running mate as they do in writing their campaign speeches. These people (politicians) are lackeys for powerful men who operate behind the scenes.
I'm sure sexual attraction was a big part of the calculation. And why not? Looks are big part of political charisma, and for the evangelical/pro-life crowd particularly– invariably portrayed as sexually repressed old prunes as by Hollywood and mainstream popular culture–it's a terrific comeback and rebuke. After Obama's good convention, it's hard to see how McCain could have made a better choice, if one considers electability the most important criteria. Whether it's good for the country is something else again.
a repost in case our circumcized, semitized, traumatized, 'hebrews' missed it:
“When And How the Jewish People Was Invented” is a very serious study written by Professor Shlomo Sand, an Israeli historian. It is the most serious study of Jewish nationalism and by far, the most courageous elaboration on the Jewish historical narrative.
In his book, Sand manages to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the Jewish people never existed as a ‘nation-race’, they never shared a common origin. Instead they are a colourful mix of groups that at various stages in history adopted the Jewish religion.
In case you follow Sand’s line of thinking and happen to ask yourself, “when was the Jewish People invented?” Sand’s answer is rather simple. “At a certain stage in the 19th century, intellectuals of Jewish origin in Germany, influenced by the folk character of German nationalism, took upon themselves the task of inventing a people ‘retrospectively,’ out of a thirst to create a modern Jewish people.” [2]
Accordingly, the ‘Jewish people’ is a ‘made up’ notion consisting of a fictional and imaginary past with very little to back it up forensically, historically or textually. Furthermore, Sand – who elaborated on early sources of antiquity – comes to the conclusion that Jewish exile is also a myth, and that the present-day Palestinians are far more likely to be the descendants of the ancient Semitic people in Judea/Canaan than the current predominantly Khazarian-origin Ashkenazi crowd to which he himself admittedly belongs."
taken from longer review by gilad atzmon.
Whether it's true or not (that McCain picked her cuz she's a babe), somebody needs to write the novel. Instead of a pudgy intern on her knees in the Oral Office, it's Madam Vice President. The mind boggles.
Of course, such a star-crossed fling has to end badly. Maybe even in the Deborah Gardner vein, a la "American Taboo."
Please, Phil — would you serialize it, chapter by chapter, here on the blog? I'll write the screenplay — the "doin' her on the desk" scene will pop your eyeballs out. This could be big … REALLY big.
I agree with higginslads. Besides it was such a brilliant strategical move, that I simply can't believe this is McCains idea. Somebody carefully studied this. And Palin turned out to have the most helpful features for the GOP me-too Obama-counter-strategy.
That is the most striking feature I think: that the GOP is offering the me too product in the 2008 election: Change is coming.
What will be Rove's job? Will he plant utterly crazy attacks on her Jeanne-d'Arc-God's-fighter-against-corruption-and-against-America's-and-Israel's-enemies-image that will drown all rational critique and divert attention?
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But actually, I was hoping to find a comment on the fecund sexual attraction of Sarah by our dear, rare lately, Jim Haygood here. :(
ahhh!!!! Thanks Jim. ;)
Good call, Jim. Fortunately I've already courageously started to blaze that trail…
Andrea Mitchell? You have set up a plot point that will be difficult to extricate yourself from.
It leads to Hillary waltzing in and throwing a bucket of ice water on the pair of them, as if stopping a pair of copulating curs. "No sex, please; we're feminists!" ARRGGGHHHHH …
No, no. Better revert to the well-worn intern angle: younger talent, and a fresh crop every year. "Hillary's Revenge" … now that would be a kinky piece of sado-porn.
"Did McCain Choose Palin Because He Found Her Sexually Attractive?"
You know, me and my friend were wondering the same thing.
I am still laughing my ass off over the Israeli flag in her Alaska office.
I don't know which is funnier – that Israeli flag bit or the (said with straight face) "She has foreign policy experience because Alaska is next to Russia".
Anyway, AIPAC set the trailer park beauty queen straight and told her what's what in America, and how politics really work in the Yoo Ess of Ey.
She has Israel in her heart now.
Just like Obama.
Basic rules: Sex sells
Sneer and Loathing
… Sarah Palin–holding a rifle aloft in one hand and a hockey stick in the other–electrified the Republican convention last night, galvanizing the base, breathing hot new life into the McCain campaign, and wowing every pundit with a penis in his pants.
…
But here's what me don't understand. If the Sarah Palin speech was such a triumphant storybook game-changing fortune-reversing event, why, as I glance at the TV screen this afternoon, is the Dow down nearly 250 points [update: 265 points] [update update: CNBC now has a breaking news item on the Dow plunging back into bear territory--nearly 300 points down]?
According the Kudlow Rules, the Dow should have responded to Palin's shot in the arm to the Republican party with an upward spike. Instead, it dove deeper into the valley.
For Hillary's Revenge just take a look at the hyperventilating nonstop rant by Judith Warner in nytimes. The general and sole idea was that Palin was an intolerable insult to feminism.
Well, I thought, with all the op-ed columnists in nytimes, its no big deal that one of them should be deranged. But then there were hundreds of comments, mostly from women, saying thank you Judith thats exactly how I feel. So it is not so much individual psychopathology as mass hysteria.
By coincidence I'd seen Dreyer's amazing movie Day of Wrath on Thursday night, and I thought of the adage 'what begins as tragedy recurs as farce'. Lets hope it stays as farce.
I googled it and "history occurs as tragedy and recurs as farce" was said by Marx.
I wonder how many of these women who are hopping mad are of Jewish descent. Jewish women as I have known them often have a special rage which stems I imagine from their foremother's exclusion from reading the Torah. The sins of our forefathers come back to bite us.
Well, here's the next gossip about Palin.
link to news.spreadit.org
The John Edwards team from the National Enquirer got up to Alaska within nanoseconds of the announcement, and it is their digging into the Scott Richter story that caused the McCain team to threaten a suit.
I followed the Alaska court records link in the link above and read the docket. Yup. The judge denied sealing the Richter divorce records on Sept 4.
Richter was her husband's partner and the story was that Palin had an affair with him. Whether true or not, it will be in the court records.
Here are some details about the Palin affair and the McCain suit.
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2008/09/mccain-camp-threatens-legal-action.html
Read the fourth comment.
Who is Barack Obama's (PBUH) foreign policy advisor? Why it's none other than the Lord of the Flies himself, aka Zbigniew Brzezinski! John McInsane in his 2000 presidential run also had a particular someone for foreign policy advisor. And who, pray tell, was that? Hmmm?! Could it be……Satan!? Yes, that's right; it was Zbigniew Brzezinski….
…again!
Reminds me of that Simpsons cartoon episode where Homer proudly displays his radical bumper sticker professing his wise and informative opinion that he is not to blame for the nation's political and economic travails, for he had stoutly refused to lend his support for the alien Kong by voting for the other candidate, the alien Kang, the staunch opponent of Kong. Then we are entreated to the next scene where Kang can be seen as a loyal, diligent cabinet member of Kong's administration! In America, cartoons depict political reality far better than the corporate-government complex's MSM retail outlets!
This reminds me of the remarks made by the late macro-historian Carroll Quigley, an unabashed apologist for the Anglo-American coterie. Dr. Quigley expressed this political circus side show by stating, on page 1247 of his huge tome entitled 'Tragedy and Hope', that "The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can 'throw the rascals out' at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. The policies that are vital and necessary for America are no longer subjects of significant disagreement, but are disputable only in details of procedure, priority, or method." Quigley continues,"But either party in office becomes in time corrupt, tired, unenterprising, and vigorless. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the 'other' party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies."
-R. Wiesinger
A friend told me that middleclass women hate Palin not because she is a rube but because she is a rightwing fundamentalist. So maybe I was wrong. I know I can be wrong from time to time. I am far from being a Buddha.
I doubt Palin will end up hamstringing McCain, but the reverse might happen. In the desire sweepstakes that is our elections, she isn't the weak dance partner.
As Mailer pointed out before his death, the US is deeply conservative, conformist, afraid to change.
Reaganism is still our creed. All but fully has it merged government with big capital and the results are to be seen in the present housing and credit crises, no less in our failed wars, but it's cemented in place now. You need more than the audacity of hope to dislodge it; it will take the cultural equivalent of dynamite.
Palin can front the dominant ideology for another four to twelve years, so long as she is set loose to work hearts and minds with her hockey mom schmaltz, her mysterious arctic breasts. Again, the mad geezer might sink this strategy. Gruesomeness by association, etc.
But if it works, then it is simply down to the bosses to find a way to inflate another asset bubble, pump up cheap credit and restore consumers to the mall and car lot. Not so easy, in the short term. There are resource wars on the horizon, too. As economic pain becomes misery, the public may gladly accept a strongman — a strongbabe.
Don't count your epochal, future-embracing elections before they're hatched! Go read Robert Lowell's poem "Inauguration Day, January, 1953" — a glimpse into what it's like to witness the country go for the military dork rather than the Enlightenment man. It will gird you against despair like an antibiotic.
Hey RC. Its raining so hard here now I feel like I'm in PDX.
"As Mailer pointed out before his death, the US is deeply conservative, conformist, afraid to change." As someone said, "People dont change when they see the light but when they feel the heat". The big heat is coming fast and I dont think theres much that anyone can do about it.
We dont know what happens then but I dont think we need be overly pessimistic. At any rate, anything is better than the slow and steady slide into the pit of the last 50 years. When change happens fast people pay attention, as we have seen under Bush&Co.
"it is simply down to the bosses to find a way to inflate another asset bubble, pump up cheap credit and restore consumers to the mall and car lot. As economic pain becomes misery, the public may gladly accept a strongman — a strongbabe." — RC in PDX
This evening the Slimes reports that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were postponing their doom until early 2009 by not writing down loans until they were nonperforming for TWO YEARS — up from 90 days.
You are so right that they are looking to start Bubble III. In a paper-money regime, there is no such thing as investment. One can only identify the currently-inflating Bubble, and buy the shit out of it with 10X leverage until it pops and torches the 'economy' to a blackened cinder.
That's what Fannie and Freddie were doing. And it's what we'll be doing long after Phony 'n Fraudie are gone. Having the bad news delivered by a strongbabe with 'mysterious arctic breasts' (so reminiscent of the Timtronic's 'powerful Buffalo arms') makes it all go down easier, I reckon. Mas tequila!
http://lobbyistsformccain.com/
Saying Sarah Palin has a "love of the outdoors" is like saying John Wayne Gacy had a love for humanity.
In the end I doubt she'll bring votes to the ticket except for firming up the rightwing evangelical base. Ignorant people voted for Bush because they thought they could trust him, but men will not trust a woman just because they think shes hot.
Its hard to believe McCain doesnt realize this. Its conceivable to me that he realized he had no chance, and disgusted with himself for all the pandering he went thru to get the nomination, simply decided to have fun with the campaign.
I reread Warners column and I see my friend was wrong and I was right. She expresses not reasoned opposition but visceral rage. She gives us this gem of a thought: "But shouldn’t a woman who is prepared to be commander in chief be intimidating?"'
God help us that so many are so quick to second her.
"Reaganism is still our creed. All but fully has it merged government with big capital and the results are to be seen in the present housing and credit crises"
I thought the housing crisis was caused by the liberal mandate to extend credit to "underserved communities" (people with new cars, high credit card debt and a habit of not paying their bills). When they withdrew all their equity and then quite predictably failed to pay their mortgages the housing crisis ensured.
Duscany, thats because when they think of a new way to pay the rich they need to come up with a liberal facade to cover the scam.
I doubt that McCain chose Palin because he finds her attractive, and he could surely find someone younger amd much more ttractive if the urge hit. His wife looks like an ex-prostitute, so I don't think that Palin is his type, anyway. I'll be glad when the boomers are in the ground.